Six Hallways, Some Rocks, and a Little Sanctuary

Made some good progress on Swordoku: Grid & Glory finally. I took a break from the game portion to work on...

Nooo. Come on. It's not another game.

I took a break to work on the scenes leading up to the game. Still the same project. I feel like that deserves at least a little credit.

Six hallways later...

I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted the splash and title screens to look, right down to the animations. The tricky part was making what was on the screen match what was in my head.

Which involved six hallways, multiple torches, and more.

And then the rocks.

Because apparently even getting to the title screen requires a small construction project.

The title screen is now done and I got the audio in place. Once I was happy with how that was looking and moving, it was time to give players somewhere to sort themselves out before heading into the dungeon.

A character, a profile, and somewhere to come home to

Next up was the profile screen: building and customizing your character, managing your profiles, all that good stuff. With profiles done, I moved on to Sanctuary.

The scene is set, and I'm happy with the nighttime atmosphere. Look carefully when you're watching it and you can see the trees moving in the wind. It's a small detail, but those little touches help the place feel alive.

I'm still figuring out exactly what will live on the Sanctuary screen. It'll be home to the usual Android game necessities: upgrades, in-app purchases, and the other things you need access to between trips into the game.

The layout and details are still a work in progress. One decision, however, is already made.

Sanctuary, not a wall of sales icons

I am not lining the flipping sides of the screen with icon after icon after icon until the actual scene is virtually hidden beneath BUY ME NOW garbage.

ONLY THREE DAYS LEFT TO GET THE BEGINNER PACK FOR JUST $69.99!!!!

No. That's the joke, not an announcement.

I'd quite like you to be able to see the place I just spent time building.

Setting the mood before pressing Play

Once Sanctuary is done, I'll get back to the gameplay: fleshing out details, designing dungeons, and working through the systems and data that still need building.

There's plenty left to do. But it helps me to see all the stuff leading up to the game as well.

When I hit Play to test and it drops me straight into gameplay, something is missing in my mind. The splash screen, the title scene, and that journey into the game set the mood. They make the whole thing more interesting to me, even while I'm the one building it.

Sometimes making progress means spending a little time on the road into the adventure.

Well, back to Sanctuary!